


Out in the Cold

by Rainbow_Femme



Category: Fargo (2014)
Genre: AU where Numbers survived, M/M, some references to canon violence, wrenchers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 16:20:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3616305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainbow_Femme/pseuds/Rainbow_Femme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Numbers survives the attack from Malvo and wakes up in the hospital.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out in the Cold

Numbers woke blearily to sirens screaming and fuzzy people overhead shouting unintelligibly. Something was in his arm and someone was pressing on his throat, which hurt like hell. He jerked his free arm at the shape of whoever was pushing on him, but that just caused more indecipherable words to be yelled and another sharp jab to go into his shoulder, sending him back into darkness.

The next time he came to consciousness, he was in a bright white room with harsh sunlight streaming in. He moved to cover his eyes and found he was strapped to an iv. He looked to his other arm, expecting handcuffs, but found none. He closed his eyes against the throbbing in his head and the pulsing tightness of the skin of his throat and tried to remember where he had been, how he'd gotten here...

The whiteness of the room reminded him, and it all came flooding back with a grotesque clarity. White out conditions, Malvo slitting his throat, the sound of two people being shot…

Shot. His face paled. The first body had sounded heavy, solid. He tried to hope it had been Malvo, but the bastard was too slight to make that kind of impact. He tried to shy away from the thought of it being Wrench; the mental image of Wrench falling to the ice and bleeding out, alone and scared, just like he had. 

But he was alright. The ambulance workers must have brought him back, pumped foreign blood into his veins to replace what he had lost. But if what he suspected was true, nothing could replace what he’d lost on this job. He and Wrench had never really been explicit about what they were too each other, but there had always been a... Thing there. Something that bonded them together like nothing else. He wasn't one for words like love or anything like that, but if he had to use it, he would use it to describe him and Wrench, what they were to each other. And this, this fear that he may never see him again, that he'd lost him on what was supposed to just be a three day in-and-out job, he had never felt anything like it, and he was sure it would rip him apart far more than any knife ever could. Squeezing his eyes shut tighter, he tried to take a few deep breaths. Looking upset to doctors or nurses would tip them off, he had to keep himself under control. But all he could see behind his eyelids was Wrench bleeding out on the ground, wondering where Numbers was and why he didn't come when he'd heard the shots, why he wasn't there when he needed him.

The sound of the door opening and closing brought him back to attention, and he opened his eyes, quickly blinking back any residual emotion. A young girl, probably only a candy striper, if that’s what they were still called these days, had walked in and was putting a faded red meal tray on his side table. She jumped when she noticed him watching her, quickly taking a half step back.

"I’m sorry, did I wake you?" Her voice rose, anxious. "I didn't mean to, they only sent me in because they thought you were still going to sleep for a while."

With effort, he was able to push himself into a sitting position, grunting. “Where am I?” He winced at his voice, strained and guttural and newly foreign to his ears. He swallowed painfully, hoping it might help. He rubbed at his throat with his free hand, fingering the gauze, trying not to think about what was underneath.

She smiled, speaking with that damned accent that was starting to feel like nails on a chalkboard to his ears. “Bemidji hospital, sir. Everyone’s talking about you.”

He stilled, looking at her warily. So they did know who he was. "Oh?"

She sat in the chair by the bed, leaning forward. “Oh yeah. No one knows who you are, see, just that you got attacked just like those other people, out in the snow. Crazy car accident or something. They were hopin’ you’d wake up so they could piece together what happened. A cop got shot, you know. And there was a guy with a bazooka I heard!” Her eyes seemed to glow with the excitement. He figured this must be the most excitement the town had experienced in years, and children never did seem to be able to grasp horrible things like this very well. To her, it was like living in a movie, the people who had been shot or had their throats slit were just characters, not real people. To be fair, he was not the worlds greatest empathizer, he couldn't be with his job, so he tried not to judge her too harshly. She still had braces, after all. What did she know about the world and its cruelties?

He frowned, scratching at his unkempt beard absently. So they didn’t know his involvement. That was good. He remembered before he’d blacked out, he heard the one cop say he thought he was dead already. It seemed about up to the capabilities of the Bemidji PD to not check whether he'd actually stayed dead or not. Especially when they were distracted by a shot cop and…

"A guy with a bazooka, you say? Whatever happened to that guy? He get away?" He carefully sipped the juice on the tray next to him, trying to keep his voice even. He hoped any sign of emotion could be hidden behind the injured sound of his voice. The people here seemed dim, but tearing up over a guy with a bazooka he wasn't supposed to know might seem suspicious.

"The lady cop who got shot, she shot him, I think. Twice, too. He’s up in intensive care, all chained up with guards at the door I tried to go in but they wouldn't let me, officers only they said."

He felt his heart both soar and plummet. Wrench was alive, but in custody. He’d never be able to get him out, not while he was in the hospital himself, and he didn't know how weak he was. And imagining him all alone, probably thinking he was dead… That hurt more than anything. They weren't meant to be apart, they had been connected at the hip since being assigned to one another. They were Mr. Wrench and Mr. Numbers, never Wrench or Numbers. To have one without the other was just unthinkable. And now this...

Before he could ask anything else, a doctor came in with the same dopey smile everyone in this godforsaken town seemed to have. He didn't know how long he could stand being here before he started beating people with bed pans, but his guess was not very long. If he told them he was George Washington and he was here after getting lost crossing the Delaware, they’d probably give him a coat and a map and wish him luck.

The girl stood up when he came in and he nodded to her. “Leave us alone a minute, Amber? I’ve got some questions here for our John Doe.” He chuckled good naturedly, as if they were all in on a charming joke rather than speaking about a man who'd had his throat slit amidst a massacre. Maybe it wasn't just the girls age that made her see this whole thing so strangely, it seemed like the whole place couldn't wrap their heads around just how serious this whole thing was. He began wondering if he really had died, and his punishment was being stuck in this town for eternity.

He answered the questions easily enough, rambling off fake addresses and family members, pulling an old alias out of his head. No he couldn't remember much of what happened, no he didn't know the men involved, yes he had just been driving through town when he lost control of the vehicle and hit the mans car, no he couldn't imagine why the man had opened fire, yes he had been looking for help in the blizzard when the man viciously attacked him from behind, yes please do pass on his thanks to the officers involved. He needed to get out of here, and as soon as possible. He needed to get to Fargo so they could get to Wrench before it was too late. Bemidji may be a mess when it came to handling crime, but he couldn't count on them bungling things forever. Once Wrench could leave the hospital, he'd be taken to a holding cell, and that would make things a hell of a lot trickier.

As the man was leaving, he nodded to the newspaper on the little table. “You hear about everything that happened? First the cop and the bazooka guy, then some mystery man shoots up a building in Fargo! And with the murders that all happened here, well it’s like the heavens are fallin’ down on us, aren’t they?”

He frowned, a cold spike of unease spreading in his stomach. “What's that about Fargo?”

"Oh well this guy took a machine gun to a whole building! FBI outside and everything, didn’t even have a clue. The guy got away too, to top it all off."

He lay back, speechless, as the doctor left. It was hopeless now, completely hopeless. He might as well tell them who he really is and at least go to jail with Wrench.  
-  
Numbers walked into the old motel hurriedly, the wind blowing hard at his back. He hated the cold, but at least it gave him an excuse to wear his scarf high on his throat without question. The old woman behind the counter smiled at him, sliding her crossword to the side and pushing the guest log forward for him to sign in. He scanned the names, searching for any of Wrenches aliases, this the last motel before the freeway, where it would be much harder to track him down.

The woman leaned forward. “You hear about that escape over in Bemidji?" She tapped the days newspaper conspiratorially. "Jesus, I don’t feel safe sleepin' at night, knowin' a wild killer’s out there.”

Numbers shrugged and put a few bills on the counter. “There’s killer’s everywhere ma'am, what’s one more?”

He went upstairs, bypassing his room and going to where he was pretty sure Wrench was staying. It wasn’t his own alias Wrench was using though, it was an old one of Numbers'. The one he’d used on their first job together. His throat constricted a bit at the sentiment and he rubbed at it absently, as had become a habit of his of late. The feeling of the thick raised scar under his fingers had finally begun to feel familiar.

He stood outside the door, his next problem being how to get the lugs attention. After five minutes of waving his cell under the door, hoping the light might wake him, he decided screw it and picked the old lock before sliding in. For someone who was so afraid of killers, you'd think she'd have upgraded the locks. One credit card and half a minute later, he was sliding into the dark room, suddenly nervous to see his old partner. It had been almost two weeks since the incident and he had been tracking Wrench from one slight lead to the next. It was difficult, asking about a man who looked just like an escaped murderer without drawing attention to him. The last thing he needed was the cops finding Wrench before he did. But now that it was all over, that he was looking at him for the first time since that night, his usual confidence had begun to wither. It seemed like an eternity since that night, and he didn't know what to expect of anything anymore.

Wrench was laying on his stomach but he didn’t seem to be sleeping. He was just laying there, his eyes squeezed shut tight, hands gripping at the pillow so fiercely his knuckles had gone white. Numbers slipped off his shoes and sat gently on the bed, Wrench immediately jumping up at the movement. One large hand went around his throat as the other switched the light on. Fury and surprise melted into wonder and surprise as Numbers smiled at him, lifting his hands and signing “Miss me?” He was met with a bear hug from a trembling Wrench who couldn't seem to hold Numbers tight enough. After a minute of the two gripping each other roughly, Wrench pulled back and took Numbers' face in his hands, inspecting him thoroughly, swallowing hard when he pulled the scarf down to reveal the thick new scar decorating his throat. He looked back up at Numbers, his eyes misty with emotion. Numbers made him tug his shirt off and let him see where the bullets hit, his heart pounding a little faster when he saw just how close Wrench had come to not making it out of that blizzard, just like he had.

Sitting together on the cramped bed, sticking to each others side furtively, both refusing to leave the other for a moment, they slowly began to plan out the future. Their job was done, but they'd stockpiled enough cash to move away somewhere and start over. Wrench suggested Alaska, finding a secluded place up there where the people were scarce and it wasn't so uncommon to have strange scars. Numbers was just happy to agree to anything as long as Wrench was there. And a nice long retirement was just the thing he needed after everything. And with no loose ends to tie up, no worry about Fargo coming after them again, he fell asleep with his head resting against a broad, warm shoulder, and finally letting out the breath he'd been holding since they first stepped into the blizzard. Whatever hell or high water came next, he figured that by now, he could take on just about anything.


End file.
